My recent business trip to Halifax was always going to be ‘long’ in the truest sense of the word. With stop-offs in Manchester, Huddersfield, Birmingham and Leeds I was staring straight at a 10 hour road trip! Being the intelligent reviewer that I am, I packed my CD case with the tracks to be reviewed for issue #3. I had hot new tracks from Doctor, Ny, Pyrelli, Asher D, Sway, Ironik, Loudmouth and Tada. So… CD in…. press play… volume LOUD… average speed 90 mph… we are on our way!
The review selection was impressive and ideal for keeping me awake on the long trip up the M1. I was particularly impressed by Loudmouth’s extremely clever lyrical concept in ‘Movie Score’ and I loved the Pyrelli (‘Here I Go’) and Gappy Ranks (‘Inna De Garrison’) tracks so much that they were rewound at least 6 times each!
Unfortunately for this month’s batch of songs I also had a (fresh from Red Records) copy of Kano’s new album ‘London Town’. That is where my dilemma began! You see our reviews are for singles only - we just don’t do album reviews. But on hearing the entire Kano album three times back to back I had no option but to break with tradition, risk being sacked by the editor, and write a review of London Town!
Kano has always reminded me of a young, but better looking, Laurence Fishburn. He has a similar aura, confidence and swagger to Morpheous in The Matrix. And when he spits on this album he possesses a flow with the power, finesse, aggression, control, movement, dexterity, ease and slickness that Morpheous displays in that unforgettable first fight scene with Neo! Use your imagination and Kano really could be the re-incarnation of Morpheous with two CD’s in hand, posing the question, “listen to ‘London Town’ and leave the matrix or chose ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’ and stay plugged in forever!”
The album opens with the impressive Product of My Environment which concludes with an awesome 16 bars of acappella freestyle that even a beat this tough had to submit to. ‘Product’ is followed by the Mikey J-produced title track London Town which is as gully as anything that 50 Cent has ever spat on. Kano steps to the beat with rhymes like “ni****s know what I’m like/ flow like I fight/ punch line old school roll with my mic/ spray like a cobra and I make ni****s hol’ up dem foot and jump like ya so ‘cause…”
The album has several tracks that use live instruments, an unusual approach for an MC, but they give the album a depth and variety that keep it from falling into a predictable pattern set by most hip-hop albums. The acoustic guitar laced Fightin’ the Nation, has an unplugged vibe that allows Kano to inject drama into a track that samples ‘Police and Thieves’ to great effect. Sleep Tight also impresses with a piano-laced arrangement accompanied by lush strings and soothing harmonies. The live vibe is also used to excellent effect on Over and Over, a smooth, almost neo-soul groove with a hint of funk that had the ‘soul boy’ in me hitting the rewind button more than a few times!
Kano references classic samples with excellent results. Fightin’ the Nation utilizes ‘Police and Thieves’ and Bad Boy breathes new life into Shy FX’s ‘Original Nuttah’ which features Craig David on the hook (who perhaps should also have sung the hook on Fightin’).
Both tracks are co-produced by Kano and Fraser T Smith with Craig David also credited on Fightin’. This trio also take production credits on the chart hit This is the Girl and if this cluster of tracks is anything to go by they make a formidable force!
Without doubt my favourite track on the entire album is the autobiographical This is My Life which again uses some outstanding live instrumentation and has a great hook sang with passion and angst by Priscilla Jones (ex member of Nu-Colors). The arrangement on this song is a credit to Kano’s evolution as an artist and he has thrown down the gauntlet to Dizzee, Wiley et al to step up their game! I can’t wait to see this song performed live with a full string section and gospel choir!
I almost missed out on what is certainly my second favourite track on the album because Kano and his team decided to hide it at the end of the album with no track id! Kano has evolved but certainly hasn’t forgotten his roots. Grime MC is his alter-ego, a self confessed cliché who doesn’t give a f**k about anything and copies everything he sees on TV! The line “I hope I don’t come across arrogant/ but the whole of your roster I’m badder than/ I’m a hustler I don’t need management/ and I negotiate quite old fashioned” had me laughing out loud, as did “Long story short I aint Kano or Dizzee and I can win a MOBO, if Sway can it’s easy”! Kano’s flow is on fire here and the energy this track injects at the end of the album is probably the main reason why I just had to rewind and listen to the album from the top again!
London Town is like a dynamic, energy filled soundtrack to an action movie that hasn’t been written yet. If anyone out there fancies themselves as a script writer, be warned you will have to come up with one hell of a story to match this. Whatever your storyline for the movie one moral message must reign above all……. you can take the MC out of grime but you can’t take grime out of the MC ‘cause he’s a product of his environment
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